Does your company experience growing pains? Of course, you want your company to grow, but as you start to diversify your products or services, that can mean a few holes open in the process.
For example, you might be a large wholesale company, and your billing and shipping software process is nailed down tight. The software works great, everyone knows how to use it, and customers are happy. But when you start offering equipment rentals as well, you’ll have to define a new sales cycle, retrain some customer service reps, and figure out recurring billing.
It takes time, but humans can be trained to do something new. Software on the other hand…does what it was built to do. And if it wasn’t built to do recurring billing, then it won’t do it. As your company grows, your staff can adjust, but your software will not. When the company grows, look for the gaps in your software.
They can occur in billing, when you change your frequency of payment. They can happen in sales, when you switch from in-bound to out-bound. They can happen in production, when you switch from outsourcing to in-house. No matter how your business is changing and growing, the related software may not be able to keep up.
What do you do in this situation? Either you let the gaps exist (not recommended), find a new software that does everything, or keep the old software and find something to fill the gap. Custom web applications or mobile apps can be a way to fill the gap in your software. They can integrate with or complement your existing systems. If the change is large enough, you might consider replacing your entire software system with something tailored exactly to your needs.